Yeah, the ground won't be visible. And I don't mean it should be 100% barren, that doesn't seem right either.
Your pic is good, it's similar to my first and third. I don't know whether that's too much grass or just enough. I'm really uncertain how much plant life there should be.
For exmaple, these Gobi pics look more barren:
Partly I'm uncertain because when I think of grassland, I think of the tallgrass prairies native to my area. But when I see photos of modern steppe-tundra in the Altai, or reconstructions of the Ice Age mammoth-steppe, it has very short grass and barren patches and looks much less lush.
This is about the most lush steppe-tundra pic I've seen today (Ukok Plateau):
This is more typical (Kuraj). Again a watercourse, and there're a few trees but not really lush plants otherwise: